Tweet of the Day

Latest Episodes:

Cattle Egret Oct 25, 2013

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Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Wildlife Sound Recordist, Chris Watson, presents the Cattle Egret. Cattle egrets were originally birds of the African savannahs but they have become one of the most successful global colonisers of any bird species. In 2008 a pair of cattle egrets made ornithological history by breeding in the UK, on the Somerset Levels, for the first time.

Leach's Storm Petrel Oct 24, 2013

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Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Wildlife Sound Recordist, Chris Watson, presents the Leach's Storm-Petrel. Only the most far-flung islands around our coasts provide sanctuary for Leach's Storm-Petrels, one of the most difficult of our breeding birds to see. Chris Watson tells the story of a perilous 2am climb he made to record the sounds of Leach's Storm-Petrel's in their breeding burrows on cliff ledges on the Island of Hirta in the St Kilda group.

Sooty Shearwater Oct 23, 2013

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Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Wildlife Sound Recordist, Chris Watson, presents the Sooty Shearwater. Sooty Shearwaters are rather scarce seabirds around our islands as they breed on islands off South America and the coasts of eastern Australia and New Zealand. After breeding, the shearwaters head north to feeding grounds in the North Pacific and North Atlantic undertaking one of the longest journeys of any migratory animal.

Yellow-browed Warbler Oct 22, 2013

Show notes

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Wildlife Sound Recordist, Chris Watson, presents the Yellow-Browed Warbler. The delicate yellow-browed warbler breeds in Siberia and winters in south-east Asia. Several hundred birds, sometimes many more, turn up each autumn anywhere between the Isles of Scilly and Shetland.

Crested Tit Oct 21, 2013

Show notes

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Wildlife Sound Recordist, Chris Watson, presents the Crested Tit. Although crested tits are quite common in Continental Europe, they are confined in the UK to the central Highlands of Scotland. They're the only small British bird with a crest so identification shouldn't be a problem and their black eye-stripe contrasts well with their grey and white face.

Goldcrest Oct 18, 2013

Show notes

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Wildlife Sound Recordist, Chris Watson, presents the Goldcrest. Goldcrests are, by a whisker, our smallest bird - roughly nine centimetres long and the weight of a ten pence coin. They migrate in October and November from Continental Europe and some people used to believe that because they arrived around the same time as wintering woodcock they'd travelled on the waders' backs and the tiny goldcrest became known as the 'woodcock pilot'.

Carrion Crow Oct 17, 2013

Show notes

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.

Wildlife Sound Recordist, Chris Watson, presents the Carrion Crow. The crow is defined in Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language as "a large black bird that feeds upon the carcasses of beasts." Crows have always suggested an element of foreboding. They are arch-scavengers and black mobs of them crowd our rubbish tips but they're also birds we admire for their intelligence and adaptability.

Short-Eared Owl Oct 16, 2013

Show notes

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.

Wildlife Sound Recordist, Chris Watson, presents the Short-eared Owl. Short-eared owls, one of our most spectacular birds of prey, are nomads, roaming over vast areas of open countryside and breeding where they find their favourite habitat of moorland or long grass.

Rock Dove Oct 15, 2013

Show notes

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Wildlife Sound Recordist, Chris Watson, presents the Rock Dove. The birds that Woody Allen once described as "rats with wings" are for many the bane of urban life. Feral pigeons, as domesticated rock doves are known, live closely alongside us. But the same species has, over millennia, been cosseted by pigeon fanciers, used to deliver wartime messages and been housed in dovecotes.

Jack Snipe Oct 14, 2013

Show notes

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Wildlife Sound Recordist, Chris Watson, presents the Jack Snipe. The song of the Jack snipe has been likened to the sound of a distant horse cantering along a road. To hear it though, you need to visit Scandinavian bogs and mires where these small waders breed. When the ice seals their northern breeding areas jack snipes head south and west and many winter in the British Isles.

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